CAP Head Mod

Good afternoon! We're about to head into one of the most important parts of CAP: Typing Discussion. Throughout this next series of polls, we'll decide as a community what typing CAP4 should have. Let's take another look at the concept.

General Description: This Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly.

Justification: Many of the Pokémon that are successful in OU are relatively easy to play or have great "safe" options (e.g. U-turn). Yet, many other Pokémon look very powerful, but are less successful than they could be because of some large risks involved (e.g. Hydreigon), and some aren't successful at all (e.g. Honchkrow). This self-balancing concept intends to explore what it takes for a risky Pokémon to be successful, and how much inherent risk a Pokémon can get away with. It should be emphasized that this concept is NOT about luck management, but rather, it is about what the user can afford to do given his/her opponent's options, and vice versa.

Questions To Be Answered:

What is the relationship between risk and potential consequences, both positive and negative?

What kinds of inherently risky tactics are successful in the OU metagame?

Do risky Pokémon need some form of safe options (e.g. switch-ins) to be successful in OU, or can it get away with having few really safe options?

How does Substitute, a well-known "safe" move with nearly universal distribution, impact how this Pokémon is built and played?

How do existing Pokémon use and deal with risky situations?

Can risky Pokémon be played well in the early game, or are they better off put into action later on?

How do different playstyles interact with risky situations?

Explanation: This concept has been a rather long time coming. My main inspiration actually comes from obi / david stone and his battling AI, Technical Machine. Part of me imagined Technical Machine playing in a metagame containing this kind of Pokémon to see how it would play it, and by submitting this now I risk never having that come to fruition, but it doesn't seem like it will be finished for this generation any time soon. My other inspirations mainly comes from examples of risky Pokémon in other metagames. Honchkrow in UU, for example, has a deadly combination in Sucker Punch + Brave Bird + Pursuit, and with enough balls (or a good opportunity), it can use Roost to keep on trucking past Life Orb recoil. Another arguable example is Ursaring in Glitchmons. It is successful for having an extremely powerful priority STAB move, but at the same time, its other priority moves aren't quite as powerful, and sometimes it has to resort to a move like V-create, which punishes its low Speed.

Now, some may have noticed that there was no mention whatsoever of the term "prediction" throughout this submission. This was intentional. I feel that "prediction" has very much become a sort of buzzword even among seasoned battlers, and people get the heavily simplified idea that Pokémon is just about predicting your opponent's move. Yet, as anyone who's played poker or even competitive rock-paper-scissors will tell you, there is an inherent risk in every read, and these risks have to be considered to be successful. The aforementioned Technical Machine has no inherent concept of "prediction" at all. Hopefully, by making a Pokémon that embodies risk and reward, we will have a better understanding of the long-term implications of risk in a Pokémon match.

I know bugmaniacbob said he wants a concept focused on how to build a Pokémon more than what the metagame does when presented with a certain Pokémon. I know that this concept is pretty heavy on the latter, but I definitely chose this concept with the former in mind as well. There are a lot of good possibilities for making risk happen, and I am eager to see what people come up with.

Click to expand...

In this thread, you're allowed to discuss both mono and dual types. Make sure you pay close attention to the TL's words; they are the most important ones to consider in this thread.

Try to keep your discussion clean and do not poll-jump into later parts of the process. If you're not sure of what poll-jumping is, I recommend you read this post in order not to be infracted. Remember to discuss with mind to the TL as well as the community. He is the one you will have to convince to be slated. Best of luck!

Before we start off this little cocktail party of misery, disagreements and flavour-related outrage, allow us to recap what we have decided upon in the previous thread, and let me impress upon you all, right now, that the typing will ultimately decide the way that this Pokemon is played. And I don't think I need to remind you that some typings are better for some roles than others, so you ought to think very carefully and make a particularly good case for whatever you happen to be supporting, both in terms of the roles that it favours and also in terms of its advantages in terms of Risk/Reward.

What I am looking for at the moment, primarily, is a typing that is stronger offensively than it is defensively; that is to say, one that constitutes a good pair of offensive STAB moves, which lend themselves well to 3- or 4-move coverage, while at the same time giving a large number of weaknesses, not just to attacking types but also to passive damage. At the same time, make sure that resistances balance weaknesses.

Note that I am not only going to slate typings that adhere to all of these exactly – I'd like to get a balanced slate if possible, and the above is a list of things that seem to further the ambition of Risk/Reward. On the other hand, if you have your own arguments aside from these, please feel free to present for evaluation.

I have my own ideas on the typing, but I'd like to see what everyone else can come up with first.

It's a species of driver ant that lives in Africa, and is roughly as interesting as those. While other army or driver ants are well known for their abilities in destroying just about everything they come across, I personally am attached to this species, not just for its size, but also for its apparent inability to attack anything but termite colonies. Which, in entomological terms, makes them pretty "hard" (or whatever word the youths are using nowadays).

After reading what U have decided to go with the typing that came to my mind was a bug/dark type since it would give is weakness to stealth rocks, U-turn but also give it stab on moves like sucker punch and pursuit

Weaknesses: Psychic, Fighting, Grass, Water, Ground
Resistances: Bug, Dark, Rock, Fire, Normal, Poison
A risky typing, in my opinion, due to is defensive problems, such as the ever common fighting and ground typed attacks. Its physical prowess could boost this pokemon however, as its typing leans towards the physical aspect of attacking.

It could also be used as a risky early-switch in or lead, setting up Stealth Rocks before switching out. To be honest, thee only direction this pokemon could take is a sweeper/glass cannon role, but many/most people were talking about this in the concept discussion.

Also, a physical wall could counter this pokemon easily, which is always a risk.

CAP Head Mod

I'm actually going to do something really silly and go against one of the main points that bugmaniacbob made. I think Dragon, in some shape or form, is a good match for CAP4 because of the risk elements it provides. Most notably, the STAB moves of Draco Meteor and Outrage, which are commonplace on all Dragon-types, provide a lot of risk. Draco Meteor is very high risk/high reward, which can result in either big pay-off in terms of damage or giving the opponent a free turn. Outrage, similarly, locks you into an attack, which leads to the risk of being revenged easily. I know priority was a concern, and Dragon-type falls pretty evenly on it. It is neutral to most forms of it, weak to one, and resists the last one. Dragon-type also provides quite a few handy resistances, but also is weak to two of the most common STABs in OU, which fits in pretty well with bmb's above points.

While it might not be the strongest contender, I don't think it should be automatically wiped from our palette of options.

The first thing that popped into my head for this CAP was Psychic typing. It doesn't offer resistance to any entry hazards or weather, though it does have a fantastic resistance to Fighting-type attacks. There are some great Psychic STAB options out there, like Psystrike, and while there are few that are risky on their own (Edit: Psycho Boost being a notable exception!), I think that one critical factor about them is that some popular Pokemon, those with Dark typing, are completely immune. Not only that, but these Pokemon also get STAB with Pursuit, which, of course, is super effective against Psychic-types.
(Edit: Also, there's the U-Turn weakness!)

For best adherence to the concept, I'd suggest that Psychic be paired with something else rather than it be a mono-type. Some people on IRC were talking about Bug to add a Stealth Rock weakness, but I worry about giving this Pokemon STAB options that are super effective against Dark types. After all, being scared of Dark types would be one of the main reasons to go with Psychic typing.

Defensively, It might be a good idea to throw out a typing with a couple of weaknesses that aren't particularly easy to teambuild around. Celebi is an example of a mon that rarely faces risk from its many weaknesses because its defensive use as part of a core is so formulaic. I don't think we should create a pokemon for whom every weakness can be nullified by just one other pokemon. Ice is a real contender in my opinion: fire, steel, fighting, rock; these are weaknesses that are so damaging, and are so diverse, that no one pokemon resists all four, and most are weak to at least one. Alongside Ice, the secondary typing should hold a couple of niche resistances and provide offensive neutrality. Ground, Fighting and Electric could be great secondaries, with great offensive coverage and useful resistances and weakness negations, while Steel as a secondary typing might allow for the creation of a defensively orientated risky pokemon, due to its two 4x weaknesses.

One of the riskiest things you can do in today's metagame is have an Ice type on your team with it's myriad of weaknesses to common STABs, SR and 2 of the 3 most seen priority moves while having a great offensive STAB yourself. But unfortunately no matter how good your defensive stats are, hard hitting super effective moves are all too common in the BW2 meta and it's why only exceptional Ice Types backed by a favorable secondary type manage to break into OU.

On the opposite side of the coin, Fighting also offers super offensive STAB with some nice resistances which would help shore up some of Ice's multiple weaknesses while still leaving it vulnerable to the same priority moves it has always been vulnerable to, turning other weaknesses into neutrality and adding a few weaknesses that Ice types have never had to fear before.

Both STAB options offer a good variation of moves on both the Physical/Special side to work with which is a good way to keep options open.

Edit: Now I've stakes my claim I'll add some of the points BMB made:

Passive damage weakness – This combo would be neutral to SR, take no damage from hail but SS, T-Spikes burns etc would still affect it. Resistance to U-Turn does help by giving it opportunities to switch in but doesn't automatically equal a sweeping opportunity.Good overall STAB combo – 2 very good STAB options offered but both have resistances allowing an opponent with good prediction to get a switch in and ruin your day.Lots of weaknesses and resistances – Many. Weak to Steel, Fire, Fighting, Psychic and Flying while resisting Ice, Bug and Dark attacks which creates opportunites to switch in but leaves enough risk to be caught by a good prediction from your opponent.STAB on notable risky moves – Blizzard and Focus Blast are 2 inaccurate moves on the special side, while on the Physical side you have Focus Punch, Cross Chop, Avalanche and Icicle Crash. Icicle spear is another gamble without Skill Link.

This typing would fit well with CAP 4 because of its powerful STAB both physical and special. Sucker Punch and Ice Shard are two physical priority moves, and a special set could utilize Dark Pulse and Ice Beam for powerful stab coverage.
This typing also poses many crippling weaknesses such as stealth rock and a huge fighting weakness.

Despite its extremely poor defensive typing, with the right moveset there would be just enough amount of reward for this typing to be worth the risk.

Hi everyone! I've been thinking this one over quite a bit, and the typing we should all be discussing for the primary typing is the Bug type. I'll give my opinion on other typings brought up in this thread in the future. Here's BMB's "requirements" in a typing, and how Bug responds to each facet:

Passive Damage Weakness: Check. The Bug typing, as an individual typing, is naturally susceptible to Spikes and Toxic Spikes. Furthermore, the typing is weak to Stealth Rock, making it much more "risky" to carry on the team and switch in constantly. Taking 25% damage every switch will make players take caution, but of course per the concept, that risk will be rewarded.

Good Overall STAB Combo: Check. Bug generally has a good offensive typing individually, striking key types in Grass, Psychic, and Dark. Eight other types are hit neutrally, providing above average coverage. I'll get into what types resist Bug next. Back to point: you want your Pokemon to be offensively threatening when talking about getting your team a win through risk (or at the least, that's what we've agreed on). Giving CAP4 a typing like Bug, a typing that historically is unique in that it threatens a good portion of threats in metagames while still having its own faults, will further lend itself to accomplishing the goal we've set out for CAP4.

STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact: Check. Bug is resisted by six different types: Steel, Fire, Flying, Poison, Fighting, and Ghost. There are Pokemon that definitely will not mind taking STAB Bug attacks. Furthermore, while STAB Bug attacks are very useful, there really isn't a Bug-type move that is very strong and dependable: you're limited to Bug Buzz and an unreliable Megahorn, one Special and one Physical. With the current types that resist it, Fighting, Steel, and Flying types are very popular in the OU metagame.

Lots of weaknesses and resistances: Arguable. Bug is weak to the following types: Rock, Fire, Flying. While that doesn't necessarily constitute a "lot" of weaknesses, I'd argue that it does constitute a good number of crucial weaknesses. Rock attacks are often used in OU play, be it STAB or (especially) coverage. Fire attacks are also in a similar boat, and aren't very hard to find. With Pokemon like Tornadus(-T) and Dragonite, you also have to be wary of potential Flying attacks in the metagame. Bug resists the following types: Fighting, Ground, Grass. Again, similar to its weaknesses, these are crucial resistances. You can't find more popular offensive options in the metagame than Fighting and Ground attacks, and having resists to those high-powered moves will be quite a benefit.

STAB on notable risky moves: Not Applicable. Besides non-offensive stat uppers (Quiver Dance and Tail Glow) and low accuracy moves (Megahorn), there's not a lot of notable risky moves offensively. I do think this is one of the lesser things we should be focusing on outright, however, and overall, this issue can be fixed with either secondary typing or move choice (I will not poll jump here).

Bug is a solid choice, and one that I think will help us complete the concept to its fullest potential.

CAP Head Mod

Going to start on some dialogue already. I love Bug-type for this concept and I think DarkSlay hit the nail on the head with his proposal. It has a good amount of weaknesses, resistances, and STAB options. It also has some great status-upping moves, which inherently have a lot of risk incorporated into their use in competitive play.

I made my original post in this thread because I first wanted to warm you guys up to the idea of Dragon at least playing a role in CAP4. However, my ideal typing would be Bug/Dragon for CAP4. In order to understand the rest of this post, please read DarkSlay's comments above mine; he echoes a lot of my thoughts that are built upon with my argument. Let me run down why exactly I think Dragon-type is the best complementary ability for Bug-type.

At its current state, Bug-type doesn't hold too many resistances. Let's add more. This is something that I've chatted about avidly in #cap on multiple occasions. I think that the risk factor associated with CAP4 should be about what it does when it is in play, rather than the risk of switching it in. Let me clarify. I don't want to make a Pokemon that constantly has to worry about switching in due to its startling weaknesses. I want it, rather, to have some solid switch-ins so that it can begin to set up and take some risks. Adding Dragon-type gives some great resistances. Ever-present Water-type STAB moves in the rain are killer in this metagame; having a way to resist that (and Electric-types moves to boot) is really essential in giving CAP4 at least a fighting chance in the rain.

Dragon-type doesn't mess with many of Bug-types weaknesses (only Fire-type attacks). We'd still leave CAP4 vulnerable to Flying-type and Rock-type moves, which is advantageous in the case of CAP4. Having that Stealth Rock weakness in tact is key to making sure that when you use CAP4, you are taking a risk; it cannot be used many times before it dies from accumulating damage.

Bug and Dragon STABs is good offensively, but not spammable. Both types are still resisted by Steel-types, so it doesn't have any excellent way of getting around them (not without setting up, at least). As I listed above, there are also inherit risks to many Dragon-type moves, so that is something to consider.

It remains neutral to many kinds of priority. I think that this is key to note, since there is risk involved with keeping CAP4 in against a Pokemon that might finish it off with priority. It resists Fighting and Water, but it also has a weakness to Ice-type priority. That, combined with neutrality to Ghost, Dark, and Normal, leaves CAP4 at a pretty happy medium in terms of priority.​

Basically, I love Bug/Dragon because it fills in the two points that DarkSlay made that are currently not in the green "checked" position. First, it adds some more resistances for it to play with, but not an obnoxious amount. Also, it adds in some STAB moves that do indeed have some inherent risk (Outrage and Draco Meteor). Hopefully this post has helped clarify why Bug/Dragon is a great set up for a high risk and high reward CAP.

Capable of handling walls such as Ferrothorn, Jellicent, and Skarmory on its own, as well as stopping threats such as Scizor, Gyarados, Politoed, etc.

The charm to this typing is that not only does it have a balance of risk and reward, but that given that it both hits and resists a lot, we could easily fit this into any role, be it a sweeper, tank, wall, or support. Regarding the concept of risk, it isn't a safe typing by any means.

Say your opponent switches in Tyranitar. You are immediately presented with risk in whichever choice you make next. Do I predict Earthquake and switch into Tornadus-T, or do I risk a Stone Edge I could have potentially survived? Should I hit him with a Fighting-type move? What happens if I give Tyranitar the turn to set up Stealth Rock, do I lose or gain momentum for the battle later? All these and more happen as you decide whether the CAP could risk its life to keep your team on the offense or to save it for whatever the situation is later.

Similarly, when CAP4 is on the field, your opponent is stuck in a risky situation as well. What set is it running? Should I switch, or would he be predicting that? Could my team handle it if I lose my Ground-type on a misprediction? True mind games indeed for everybody.

I think that Psychic/Ice or Psychic/Bug would be good choices. Psychic has few resistances (Fighting, Psychic), though the fighting type resistance is great, and enough weaknesses (Bug, Dark, Ghost). Ice and Bug both have some good moves, but are weak to Stealth Rocks. ice and Bug also both have enough weaknesses by themselves (Ice = Fire, Fighting, Steel, Rock. Bug = Fire, Flying, Rock). And Ice gets rid of that precious Fighting resist, while Bug makes it more resisted. I think we could create our own move (I think people have done this in the past?) that does lots of damage, but lowers Sp. Atk or Atk, whatever is this pokemons highest (probably Sp. with Psychic). So i like Psychic/Ice and Psychic/Bug.

On paper, this looks quite powerful - there are of course, a lot of resistances and only 3 weaknesses. Consider, however, that OU's more common attacking types - water, electric, rock, ground and most notably fighting - find themselves at least unresisted by CAP4, making steel/ice not as overpowered as it may first seem. A large array of resistances are a boon to the reward side of CAP4, while it's two nasty 4x weaknesses up the risk factor greatly.

Passive damage weakness
CAP4 gets hail, sandstorm and toxic immunities. I must concede that they're not ideal for the concept we're working with, and could count against my proposed type. However, if we were to pick a type that got hit by every single form of passive damage, we'd be looking at a very poor typing that would cause CAP4 to struggle in OU.
Thankfully, many other notable forms of passive damage would still effect CAP4. Stealth rock does neutral damage, spikes still get it, burn can cause it a problem, as can leech seed. (Though not passive damage, lack of ground typing means CAP4 would be easily paralysed too.)

Good overall STAB combo and STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact
Ice is a great offensive STAB to have. Steel is not so much. Combined, the two give what I'd call good coverage, though by no means can they be spammed endlessly, as plenty of pokemon resist the combo. Looking through OU, most water types would resist the combo, as would all steel types save for Skarmory. But, in my opinion, that's risk. You risk your opponent having them and you risk not being able to remove them before CAP4 comes into play.
There are rewards to the combo, though. CAP4's STABs hit a lot of the OU metagame super effectively (mostly from ice, granted, but a few from steel too). Gliscor, Landorus, Salamance, Dragonite would all tremble before it. I count a further 14 pokemon in the OU tier who would be hit super effectively by one or the other (and I might have missed a few).
I find it extremely important to note, given that we're making a risky pokemon here, that lots of these pokemon could KO CAP4 should it not KO them first, since the ground and rock types that it hits super effectively will probably carry earthquake (or earth power) and many (like Terrakion, Virizion and Breloom) carry secondary steel typing. That's more risk. Excellent.

STAB on notable risky moves
Sadly, we miss out on STABs for a lot of classic risky moves. No sucker punch and no focus punch here, I'm afraid.
However, in return, we get some slightly more quirky options. Steel gives us gyro ball, heavy slam and metal burst - all moves with variable base power which require the player to predict and guestimate certain aspects of his opponent (in gyro ball's case, that's the speed stat of the opponent, for example). For me, they count as risky moves.
Ice offers up a couple of surprises too. Avalanche creates risk because CAP4 either has to be hit first (which is risky itself) or suffers a loss in base power. Ice ball is another interesting option - the ice version of rollout would allow players to gamble being able to stay in for 5 turns in return for good base power.
(It's fair to say that other than gyro ball, these moves are rarely seen, and so we may have our work cut out making them worth using.)

So that's my case for ice/steel typing. If you've made it this far down, I'd like to say a big thank you for reading all that. I hope you like my ideas.

i'm liking ice, bug and psychic the most as typings for this cap. ice is an absolutely fabulous offensive stab, but being the shittiest typing in the game brings with it a crapton of risk straight off the bat.

bug is a very very niche typing and darkslay described it well: it perfectly targets some of the best defensive typings in the game (grass, psychic) and resists some of the best offensive typings (ground, fighting), but most of the things it resists will be carrying a super effective move (cough edgequake/rakstab) and there are just a ton of mons that wall bug stab (5 resists vs 3 weaks. almost every team will have a wall for bug attacks in the modern era). i'm digging a bug/secondary and birkal's bug dragon sounds so cool, but there are a lot of good ways we could take that typing.

psychic is probably one of the riskiest typings there is and possibly the second crappiest. i would say it just outright sucks which is why i'd put it near the bottom of the pile. psychic has only one useful resistance (fighting) in exchange for dangerous weaknesses to bug and dark. its only useful SE coverage is on fighting. running any psychic (especially if it lacks insurance against physical attackers) means taking on a big risk of pursuit. the thing i don't like about psychic is that it has very little to reward a player with in exchange for its numerous disadvantages. what the existing psychics in game have, that justifies their use despite awful typing, is generally the quality of their other factors like movepool and ability (just look at all the psychics that would suck without their ability - gothitelle, espeon and xatu, for starters. alakazam would still be in UU without magic guard). i don't feel like that does a very good job of leveraging our opportunity to select a good typing.

one intriguing concept that keeps coming into my head is psychic/dark and i don't know why i really like it, but there's something appealing about it to me. in a practical sense, the two types don't seem to suit the cap very well (they erase one another's key weaknesses and leave only the 4x bug weakness) but the stabs are very risky to be throwing around. neither of them hit steels, neither of them hit darks, and their SE coverage is precise (fighting and psychics themselves) but generally crappy. idk why this appeals to me but i guess i thought i'd throw it out there anyway.

as for ice steel, it's a very interesting typing but i think it must be emphasized how strongly this typing would fare against dragons. if an ice-steel existed in game, it'd have to have absolutely terrible stats and movepool to not be OU. just the typing would be astounding on its own for being able to check almost any dragon. this is one where cap itself takes a big risk. i suspect this could be one of the most powerful typings anywhere in the game and it would have to be approached very cautiously. i would say that if anything, steel is the opposite of a risky typing; it has great resistances (duh) and its neutral coverage hits all the things it's capable of walling (dragons, rock types, etc). that's a pretty good exchange for those 3 weaknesses to fire, fighting and ground so i'm not so sure about it.

I'm gonna have to agree with Birkal here. Bug/Dragon would be a great typing for CAP4. It provides a passive damage weakness (which is what we're looking for), without messing with Bug's weaknesses in any way (besides fire, again). Being completely walled by Steels (a common type in this metagame) ensures CAP4 cannot spam its STABs recklessly, and forcing it to rely on a coverage move for this (Focus Miss, anyone?) also increases the risk factor. On the other hand, Dragon moves are very powerful, and would provide a reward to people who use CAP4 properly, especially if backed up by a strong offensive stat.

HOWEVER, GRs Cousin also brings up an interesting concept. Fire/Electric would allow CAP4 to fulfil a variety of roles, as well as provide certain risks and benefits which I won't copy-paste here. However the main reason I don't support this is that I believe that a 4x Weakness to Ground might hamper CAP4's defensive capabilities/switch in capabilities, seeing as many, MANY pokes carry EQ or EP as a coverage move. The reason Mollux could pull this off is its huge SpD (allowing it to take an EP or two) + its strong recovery (Dry Skin + Lefties + Recover). Unless we give CAP4 something similar, I would prefer Birkal's suggestion to GRs Cousin's.

Moderator

While I see these two typing have been suggested individually, I think when paired together, Bug/Psychic would be a good typing based on the criteria you have set.

First and foremost, when it comes to passive damage, few typings are left more vulnerable than Bug/Psychic. It is weak to Stealth Rock, takes damage from Sandstorm and Hail, is vulnerable to spikes and Toxic Spikes, and is even weak to both U-Turn and Pursuit. So, when it comes to getting worn down indirectly, this typing really has it all.

However, despite the weaknesses, I think it makes a great offensive type. Bug and Psychic together get fantastic neutral coverage. While they are resisted any steel type without a secondary type weak to one of them, no non steel type resists the pair, meaning the combination overall is only resisted by 7 Pokemon in OU, most of which share common weaknesses. At the same time though, you cannot really see much success in OU by just spamming Bug and Psychic moves. While together they have great neutral coverage, they lack significant super effective coverage, and individually are resisted by many OU Pokemon.

As for weaknesses and resistances, Bug/Psychic has plenty of those. Five weaknesses and four resistances, to be precise. But the real key here is the specific types to which it is weak and which it resists. Rock and Fire are ever-present attacking types in OU that is must watch out for, and the prevalence of Hurricane means a flying weakness is a lot more dangerous than ever before. However, it is not all bad, as it gets key resistances to ground and fighting, with the latter being a x4 resist, giving it definite potential opportunities to get in on resisted hits.

Now, when it comes to attacks though, this typing does not seem to stand out as much as far as risk, but I still think there are a few options we can work with. Of these Psycho Boost stands out the most as the epitome of a risky move. A Draco Meteor like attack always comes with risk as it may very well open up the door for your opponent to set up, however, Psycho Boost stands out even more so over its Dragon counterpart as its Psychic typing makes it much more likely to be resisted. Now, there is not too much else of note, other than maybe Future Sight or something, but I believe that this is by far the least important of the criteria, and these few moves are enough for our purposes.

Overall, I think Bug/Psychic is a great example of a type that provides plenty of risk, but has the positives to make it worth it.

I like the idea of Psychic, as mentioned before by Asylum_Rhapsody. However, unlike what he said, I think a Psychic/Bug combo would be good. This has the potential to become a powerful attacker, with many strong attacks and excellent buffs available to both types. This would offer resistances to Grass, Ground, and Psychic, and a double resistance to Fighting. However, it also has six weaknesses: Fire, Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost, and Dark (although Dark could feasibly be countered).

Dragon/Grass also has the potential to be risky. This typing takes 0.5x damage from Fire and Ground, and 0.25x damage from a whopping 3 types: Water, Electric, and Grass. However, its weaknesses abound as well. Ice is the most obvious and critical, and goes hand in hand with Bug, Flying, Poison, and Dragon. Combined with the availability of moves like Petal Dance/Outrage, Leaf Storm/Draco Meteor, and Wood Hammer, this could make for a rather risky setup.

Which reminds me. Fighting should also be considered. Moves like Close Combat, Hammer Arm, Hi Jump Kick, and Superpower all have inherent risks with using them, but offer high damage rewards. Cross Chop and DynamicPunch are similar, but they do not hurt the user. Reversal also demands that the user be in a risky situation to be effective. Fighting will allow for an excellent risky movepool, but should probably be paired with Fire, Flying, Bug, or Ice to negate that SR resistance. The only problem is that these typings either result in something with tons of weaknesses and few resistances, or vice versa, as well as STAB that could be easily spammed. Perhaps we should save Fighting until CAP4's movepool.

As of right now, I'm liking the sound of Grass/Dragon. That Ice weakness is too hard to ignore, and it would be tough to abuse the Grass STABs, but the weakness/resistance combo is fairly well balanced, and this typing would give access to some powerful and risky moves. With the addition of an equally risky ability, I think we could make quite the risk-taker

Good overall STAB combo – that means it should have both a wide coverage over the OU metagame and STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact – That means no dragons (oh fine if you want)

- Obviously... Boltbeam. That being said neither type is truly spammable. There are plenty of electric resists and ice resists in OU for this to not simply be a choiced monster. However, obviously this will make set-up sets dangerous if we allow them.

Lots of weaknesses and resistances – It should be a risk to switch in, but that doesn't mean it should be impossible to do so

- Weak to Rock/Fire/Fighting/Ground (provided no levitate), resists Electric/Ice/Flying. This provides the interesting scenario that CAP4s safest switchin in OU may be CAP4, depending on spread/movepool.

Wow, bug types are surprisingly popular here. I find it a little surprising, to be honest, considering there are no risky bug moves. I get that there's a fair bit of risk from the type, but other than the shaky accuracy of megahorn (if I'm right, general opinion is that probablilty risk isn't to be the focus of CAP4), bug moves have little drawbacks, which is a shame. Still, I can see where people are coming from, especially with the bug/dragon pairing - that one seems like a winner already.

Ah, the boltbeam CAP. I considered suggesting this one myself. While it sounds good on paper, I wonder if the metagame has decided the risks largely outweigh the rewards already. After all, Rotom-F sits in NU while Rotom-W sits at the top of OU. Can that whole gap really be attributed to just the difference between blizzard and hydro pump?
That's why I kept it to myself.
Then again, there are a plethora of ways to make CAP4 different to Rotom-F, and avoid it having the same fate. It could be interesting. Just thought I'd spark I'd throw the thoughts out there.

The biggest question with this typing is where is the risk? Dislikes Earthquake, Stealth Rock, and Thunder. Pretty common moves in OU. Unlikely to last long regardless of stats. Most FIRE and WATER moves are not very risky at all. Not a huge drawback to them. A few of <90% Accuracy. Water Spout and Eruption are dependent on killing the enemy before they can hurt you. Hydro Cannon and Blast burn have a recharge turn.

Fiery Dance is weak compared to most moves but has a chance to boost SPA. Brine is dependent on the opponent being under 50% HP. So, if the opponent has a decent/reliable healing move... There isn't a lot of risk in its STAB concerning common moves in OU. But maybe we shouldn't be looking only at common moves? Why not look at all moves and their risk/reward as well?

I'd like to throw out my support for Bug/Psychic and Bug/Dragon. I was initially against Dragon, but birkal makes a very compelling argument, honestly.

However, one possibility that I don't see raised yet is Bug/Ghost. Of the many things we could do for CAP4, I think this is the most proper route, and here's why:

Passive damage weakness – Weak to SR, Spikes and T-Spikes, Sandstorm and Hail, Poison, Burn, and also Pursuit
Good overall STAB combo – Bug and Ghost together hit all mono-types bar Steel at least neutrally, and moreover, Bug STAB is SE against Dark types that'd want to switch into the Ghost to use Sucker Punch and/or Pursuit. With access to just Fighting (or Ground) coverage it can cover its bases, however...STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact – Without coverage for Steels these can be easily walled, moreover because Skarmory and Heatran x4 resist Bug, for example, and many common OU Pokemon weak to one of its STAB would actually resist the other. Another factor is that except for Megahorn (which has low Accuracy) Bug and Ghost don't have a reliable move with Base Power of 100 or more that could be spammed akin to Close Combat.
Lots of weaknesses and resistances – Bug/Ghost takes SE damage from Fire, Flying, Rock (so also Stealth Rock), Dark and Ghost itself. In return it resists Grass, Ground and Poison plus gets Ghost's two immunities, to Fighting (this has overlap with Bug's resistance) and Normal (and this lets it act as a spinblocker)
STAB on notable risky moves – Nothing noteworthy in this field (I don't think Hex counts).

I thought of the Ghost typing ever since the idea of a spinblocker was brought up. I'd have to agree, spinblocking is riskier than spinning, and it invites Pursuiters. I'd like to see this CAP have Ghost typing and see how it fares (notwithstanding the recently made Necturna) - a spinblocker that's weak to Stealth Rock must really make every switch count, but if the risk pays off, the reward is keeping your team's hazards on the field. The tension between hazard damage, weather damage, and probably HP lost for making Substitutes (one has to prepare for the predicted Pursuiter, right?) leaves little room for error, as even a resisted attack that hits it might bring it down once it's at low HP.

I realize Bug/Psychic and Bug/Ghost are very similar in many ways though. A secondary Ghost typing has that spinblocker role on its side, though Psychic offers probably more weaknesses in general (it adds a U-Turn weakness, after all, and only gives a x4 Fighting resist instead of an immunity). As I said in the first line, I'd support Bug/Psychic if it gets chosen, but Bug/Ghost has its perks that just win me over, and I prefer it slightly to Bug/Psychic.

Passive Damage Weakness:Easily Applicable. Bug/Dark is a typing which is harmed by the two harming weathers in the game: hail and sand. It is also a 'grounded' type so it gets hit by Spikes and Toxic Spikes. It resists Pursuit, but here is the game changer; U-Turn, and Stealth Rock. Stealth Rock, being common among CAP Pokemon will take away 25% of HP upon switch-in, making it risky to keep switching in. This typing is weak to U-Turn, and is especially susceptible to it on the Banded and Scarfed Pokemon it is often used on.

Good Overall STAB Combo:Easily Applicable. Bug is good against 3 types: Psychic, Grass, and Dark. Dark is good against 2 types, Psychic and Ghost, so among them, they are good against 4 types. Also, Bug/Dark has some interesting and powerful moves, like Megahorn, Attack Order, Quiver Dance, Crunch, Sucker Punch, and Pursuit.

STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact:Easily Applicable Bug is resisted by six different types: Steel, Fire, Flying, Poison, Fighting, and Ghost. Dark is resisted by three: Fight, Dark and Steel. If you have 1 STAB attack per type then Ghost and Dark are covered, and Fire, Flying, and Poison become neutral, leaving only Steel as "true" resistances. However, despite this, this is not an efficient method of attack, due to CAP 4 getting other offensive types, so STAB is not overpowered.

Lots of weaknesses and resistances:Applicable Bug/Dark is weak to Bug, Rock, Fly, and Fire and resists Ghost, Dark, Grass, and Ground. While you may think it could have one more weakness, Bug, Rock, Fly, and Fire are rather common attack types among Syclant, Stratagem, Tomohawk, Mollux, and Pyroak. So it balances it out. And while the types it resists arent as common it makes it riskier to work with, but doesn't seem like its too hard to do so.

STAB on notable risky moves:Arguable, But Not Impossible. With Bug, it is not very risky but does have some choices. Megahorn is powerful, but inaccurate, and Attack Order can sometimes make you dependent on a lucky critical with it's high rate. On the flip side, Dark is a riskier type. Sucker Punch is dependent on the opponent's choice to attack, and Pursuit is based on the opponent choice to switch or not. And while both are heavily based on luck and prediction, they both have high payoff. Embargo has high payoff on Pokemon who are dependent on items, but they can always switch out. (Thief is an alternative) Torment is wonderful on choiced foes because it gives you a turn to set up, because they will have to switch, but choiced foes are usually more powerful and faster than you.

I do hope you can consider Bug/Dark as a viable type for CAP 4, and will at least make it to voting. P.S. Please PM me if I made any mistakes.

Hold on a second, don't bash me just yet. Yes, Dragon/Fighting is a ridiculously amazing offensive type. Pretty great defensively as well.

Passive damage weakness –The only thing it has going for it is resistance to Stealth Rock; it's crippled by everything else. Good overall STAB combo – Please.STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact –A unique attribute to this specific set of STABs is the fact that the more one attacks with any of the attacks listed above, one puts themself more and more at risk of being exploited by the opponent. The significance of this is that it would force the team to be able to support CAP 4 extensively because it cannot operate for very long without being able to heal itself/switch out safely; if the team support rendered unavailable (risk) CAP 4 would be rendered useless. Lots of weaknesses and resistances –4 and 7, respectively.

These problems, combined with the riskiness that tends to come with Dragon and Fighting type STAB (Outrage, Draco Meteor, Close Combat, Hi Jump Kick, Focus Punch) would put tremendous amounts of risk on the table. See "STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact" for more details.STAB on notable risky moves – Outrage, Draco Meteor, Close Combat, Hi Jump Kick, and Focus Punch all escalate the risk of being revenge killed in some way, shape, or form. It should be noted that none of these function through chance (save for Hi Jump Kick, but that's a minor flaw in the move compared to the possibility of it not hitting via other circumstances [Protect, Ghost-Types, etc.]) and therefore all of the risk comes through the user's play and the opponent's response; this means that it would be possible to examine certain scenarios without having to handle the probability risk that might otherwise muddle up the operation.

Proposal:NormalPassive Damage Weakness:Very vulnerable. Through typing alone, Normal is weak to every type of passive damage.

Good Overall STAB: Somewhat. Normal doesn't hit anything for supereffective damage, is resisted by 2, and has an immunity. Steels are common. Ghosts and Rocks aren't as common, but some, such as Gengar and Tyranitar, are still threats. However, Normal hits everything else for neutral damage, and moves like Extremespeed and Return are excellent STABs.STAB that cannot realistically be spammed endlessly for maximum impact:Hell No. Normal is a type that is nigh impossible to spam with Steel-types on every team. Also, the supereffective coverage of normal moves is nonexistant.Lots of weaknesses and resistances:No.Normal is only weak to fighting, but at the same time, has only one immunity: Ghost. Ghost isn't a type used that often, but Fighting is. Although it isn't a risk to switch in, it can't hit anything for supereffective damage, so much can switch into a normal pokemon easily.STAB on notable risky moves:No. Explosion? Crush Grip? Wring Out? Not really good STAB moves to begin with, not to mention you can't really sweep with any of them. The closest risky move for normals is Thrash or Double Edge, and why use those when you have Return? On the other hand, Most normal moves carry an inherent risk to them, as the ubiquitous Steels (and to a lesser extent, Rocks and Ghosts) use normal attacks as free switch ins.

While Normal-types have little risk at first glance, a closer look reveals that actually, a Normal CAP4 would be extremely vulnerable to passive damage, being set up on, and would be weak to one of the more common attacking types in the game.